The Press: Runyon with the Half-Boob Air

Damon Runyon got his first newspaper job when he was a gawky 16-year-old
Kansas kid. He has written about 80,000,000 words since then. Some of
them were very good. As William Randolph Hearst's top sports-byliner,
he could make a silk purse out of a cauliflower ear. When Collier's
ballyhooed a Runyon short story on its cover, newsstand sales sometimes
went up 60,000 copies. But last week, at 65, Damon Runyon looked back
at his career, and said he wished he had been playing Pagliacci
instead.

In his daily column in 125 papers, Runyon reviewed his own latest book,
(Short Takes, a selection...